


Soulmates Always End Up Together

by kzepplin (Sailorzeplin)



Category: The Goldfinch (2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24567958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sailorzeplin/pseuds/kzepplin
Summary: this work is titled "hell yeah domesticity babey" in google and i think thats the best summary there is for this
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	Soulmates Always End Up Together

**Author's Note:**

> yeah im sorry to donna tartt for butchering her beautiful ambiguous ending with actual closure but this is my comfort movie and i get to choose the ending.

It had been months since the events of Amsterdam, months since he had watched his Goldfinch fall into his lap, and then be taken away again. Months since he had said goodbye to Boris in the airport, promises of visiting when they had the time. He had started his tour of America, righting the wrongs he had committed - not against these museums and collectors - but against Hobie, wanting so desperately to have Hobie look at him in that proud way again, ruffle his hair in that fatherly way, to be able to look at him without feeling shame. He had started the tour and along the way, he had managed to drag himself to a little clinic in a suburb, high confidentiality and sterile rooms, shaking and crying his way through withdrawals to sobriety, begging the nurses for a beer, for a shot, for a vicodin, anything, and being given sad smiles instead. But in the end, when he walked out of the clinic weeks later, a little card declaring his sobriety stuck in his suit pocket, he had smiled to himself, and when he called Hobie that night he was met with pride and support. He supposed that was the reason he decided to walk into another clinic, late September of the next year, and checked himself in, scared out of his mind and itching to get his hands on a bottle again, trying to keep Hobie proud.  
~~  
Flash forward to mid-July, and he was back in New York, back in the bedroom above the antique shop, Kitsey living in the Village with Tom, the newest happy couple for the media to focus on, their past engagement long forgotten, something he was greatly appreciative about. He still visited Mrs. Barbour, two person book clubs and tea parties and meetings where they would talk about art until the sun went down, and sometimes even after that. He felt good, he was finally moving on, so one night when he was up on his computer, and an ad popped up advertising a new therapist’s office downtown, he clicked and booked an appointment, a whim that had carried him to that Monday, when he had sat nervous in the waiting room. He hadn’t trusted the first man, and had nervously asked to see a new person, until he had cycled through three therapists in the office, quickly losing hope, until a young woman with a crooked ponytail and freckles had asked him to allow her to set him up an appointment with her, and he finally felt like he had found someone to talk to.  
~~  
Now it had been two years, technically sober for two and half, and Popper was somehow still alive, old and slow but still just as eager to steal food from his plate and go on walks. And Hobie was still making new furniture, but now they were selling it for what it really was, and young college students were coming in and buying at astonishing rates, some of the brave ones winking and dropping their number along with their signature on receipts, which never failed to make Hobie chuckle as he went through the papers for the day, comments on his popularity with the young men and women a commonly cited reason for the success of their shop among friends. Mrs. Barbour was still calling him over to discuss art and books, confined to bed, but that not stopping her from browsing art galleries online, and cracking jokes that made him double over laughing. Things were so brilliant, so one night, around 10, when the doorbell rang he stumbled out of bed to answer it, he wasn’t expecting the person at the door. Boris was standing there, still gangling and awkward, but the bags under his eyes were gone, and he was smiling nervously at him.  
“Potter...may I come in?”  
~~  
Boris had been living there for a week now, reluctant to mention why he had come, only that he had wanted to see him, see his store and what he had been up to. He didn’t say anything about it, but Theo noticed the startling lack of new track marks on his arms when he rolled up his sleeves to cook, the new tattoo on his thigh when he was walking around the house in the morning in sleep shorts-a pair of clasped hands, surrounded by a Russian saying, something about love-and the easy smile he seemed to wear more often, and Theo couldn’t help but wonder if Boris had gone through the same transformation he had. Had he laid, miserable and wanting in a sobriety clinic? Had he cried and stuttered through his first real therapy session, gasping for air in an office room? Honestly, Theo couldn’t bring himself to imagine it, but when Boris woke up early to cook all of them a hot breakfast, taking it down to Hobie in the workshop, feeding Popper bits of bacon, it felt like he was back in Vegas watching him put together their Thanksgiving meals, the soft radio filling the kitchen. Hobie hadn’t asked, when he had first shown up, just chuckled and asked him if he had a preference on guest rooms, before welcoming him with wide, open arms, and neither had Theo, but it had been weeks, and he was becoming increasingly curious, wanting desperately to have his questions answered.  
~~  
It took another few days before he had the chance to talk to Boris, a late night for both of them, Boris curled up on an armchair with Popper in his lap, an old documentary film playing on the TV, when he decided to broach the subject, gently, like talking to an excitable animal, which Theo supposed is what he knew Boris best as.  
“Boris, hey man, what happened. Where are all your ‘associates,’ aren’t they going to be worried about you, nervous about you being gone for so long?”  
“Ah, Potter, so kind of you to worry about my business. Very kind of you, but to answer your question, no. No, I do not think they will worry, because I do not work with them anymore! See, I quit, I tell them ‘I am no longer doing this work anymore’ and they are angry with me, for a while, but then they let me walk away. No big deal. Ha! And now I am a...free man, I will say.”  
Theo could tell there was more to the story, but one look at Boris let him know that this was all he was willing to say at the moment, so he laughed in joy with his friend, and didn’t bring it up for the rest of the night.  
~~  
Three weeks later, Boris showed up at Theo’s bedroom door, looking nervous, before asking if maybe, he could go with him to the therapist he was seeing, mumbling out some excuse about needing to talk to her, scurrying back to his room with the number for the office, all trembling hands and stuttering voice. He drove him to the appointment the next day, smiling fondly to find that, despite all the changes, Boris still didn’t know how to drive, somehow a small comfort, that he wasn’t entirely different. After the session, Boris went home and slept for hours, only waking up when Theo knocked on his door, bringing him dinner.  
~~  
It took months of working, before Theo was able to ask Boris, nervous and shaking, if he wanted to go to dinner, even more months still before he was able to kiss Boris, light and sweet and hopeful outside of a movie theater, crying a bit at how easy it had turned out to be, despite having spent many a therapy session in tears over how afraid he was of finally admitting to himself that that was what he wanted, content to live the rest of his life afraid and in hiding. But now, here they were, waking up in the same bed in the morning like they had when they were kids, quick kisses before heading off to work, and Boris was a Russian teacher now, as strange as that was to think about it. They still lived above the workshop, Hobie had been training an apprentice for a year now, a young college girl with bright eyes who had just as much of a talent and love for antiques as he had, and now he was retired, currently doing a stint in Hawaii, travelling happily, leaving them the shop to run and take care of while he was gone. They had gotten a cat, a lazy young kitten who loved to lay across Popper’s back, keeping him company in the many warm corners of the kitchen, who they had affectionately named Strawberry, after finding her digging through an old strawberry carton in the alley, Boris immediately enraptured with her, asking “Please Potter let’s take her back with us, she can keep that old fool Popchyk company, eh?” until he relented, never one to refuse Boris anything.  
~~  
They had never decided to formally marry, Boris not being one for the institution, and Theo unable to really think about marriage after his time with Kitsey, but they had both bought each other rings. Boris’ was set with dark stones, engraved on the inside with the dates they had first met, then met again, then met for the last time. Theo’s a sweet amber color, simple and elegant and beautiful. And while maybe it wasn’t the most formal or official arrangement, Theo supposed that nothing in their life had been, and that maybe they weren’t meant for a formal marriage, but hadn’t they been committed to each other, since those wild nights in Vegas, where they fell in love for the first time? And so, when Boris got down on one knee, and gave him his ring, in the privacy of their home, surrounded by sunlight and flowers and books and art, Theo cried and accepted and kissed him, and he felt at home.


End file.
